Lecture: Political participation of youth and women in Palestine and how to strengthen it
Pal-Think delivered the lecture «Youth and women's political participation in Palestine and the mechanisms of strengthening it», under the NED-funded Youth Forum for Policy & Development project.
21 July, 2019
Gaza — The Pal-Think for Strategic Studies institution carried out a lecture titled “The political participation of youth and women in Palestine and the mechanisms of strengthening it”, within the project “The Youth Forum for Politics and Development”, which comes in cooperation with the “National Endowment for Democracy (NED)”. Pal-Think hosted Dr Abeer Thabet, an academic and trainer in the political field, with the participation of a team composed of 25 youth (13 females : 12 males) within the age category 18–24, who have the passion to learn about politics and development.
The lecture aimed at discussing the importance of the youth's participation in political life and decision-making — especially as Palestinian youth represents a third of society — and that it is important that the youth have the knowledge and understanding required in order to play an effective role as the leaders of the future. That likewise included talk of ways and means for developing the youth's role in public life.
Dr Thabet began the lecture by showing a motivational video for the youth about success in life, then began the discussion by touching on the concept of youth work and political participation in general. There followed talk of two principal axes: the reality and impediments of political participation facing Palestinian youth, in addition to the Palestinian woman's role and her position in political participation.
The lecture followed the method of discussion and dialogue: Dr Thabet divided the youth into 3 groups and several sub-axes were discussed, comprising talk of political participation, the political socialisation of youth and women, the mechanisms of political participation, the forms of the political participation of youth and women, the impediments to the youth's political participation, in addition to the reasons for Palestinian youth's and women's abstention from political participation.
Dr Thabet concluded the lecture by speaking of successful examples of leading women and successful political participations of effective youth, to encourage the young men and women toward political participation and its strengthening.
